Bad Vs Neutral Endings (Spoilers, obviously!)

[Rivan]

Hello, everyone.

While discussing with people and browsing the forums, I have made something of an interesting discovery. Namely that, in case where a girl had more than two endings (Rin and Hanako), and two of which technically were not the "good" ending, quite a few of my co-players noted that they felt the "Bad Ending" was somehow better than the one often cited as the "Neutral" one.

This seems to be even more true in case of Hanako, where "releasing the bottled-up anger" seems to please casual players more than Hanako just shutting herself up and permanently "friendzoning" Hisao.

I've been wondering about the whole thing myself and after obtaining all the possible endings for Rin and checking out Hanako's endings, I think I am ready to make my own case.


First, I will ask the question : Do you feel that the game's "Bad endings" indeed feel more satisfying, or at least less dissatisfying, than the "neutral endings" of the girls' in question (Hanako and Rin)?



If I were to analyze this thing, I guess the overall positiveness/negativeness of an ending must depend on who's perspective we are looking from : the girl's or the hero's.

WARNING! SPOILERS FOR HANAKO AND RIN FOLLOW!

In both cases of the "neutral ending", Hisao is able to establish some sort of relationship with clear-cut feeling involved with either of the girls, and they deal with it in their own way. With Rin, he is able to vocalize how he feels about her problems and explain them to them, but without enough detail and in the wrong moment, which causes Rin to decide she HAS to change and leave him behind. However, at that point, the bond between the two seems to exist, only that the sadness of this ending is that it has to be broken. Rin even hugs Hisao and does whatever can be called "Rin's best" to communicate with him.

In Hanako's case, she is able to go over her birthday depression and "let Hisao into her world", allowing him to be her friend and "protect" her. This is actually the kind of relationship Hisao seems to want, given his previous thoughts about Hanako, so indeed it probably seems less negative for him than Hanako breaking out of her shell just to yell at him and tell him she despises Hisao and even Lilly.

However, from the girl's perspective, the thing is backwards. And brought up to the X degree.

In Hanako's neutral ending, it seems to me that it is strongly suggested Hanako simply gave up on herself, her life and any possibility of truly breaking out of her shell. She accepts that something is permanently wrong with her and she cannot be a valuable person, only something to be protected, and that her relationship with Hisao will never improve, and neither would her relationships with Hisao or Lilly reach a point where they truly consider her an equal.
Thus, she gives up and let's Hisao do what he seems to want : a relationship where she is his little sister at best.
I think that unlike the case with Hanako's good ending or Lilly's route, this Hanako will not attempt to break out of her shell, because she was effectively convinced that she is "unworthy" and the case of an incomplete person that doesn't deserve love or even normal friendship of equals.

In Hanako's bad ending, at least, she cannot take this sort of treatment anymore and while we have no idea how she copes with her "breakup" and the entire situation afterwards, at least she's not shown giving up and accepting her role as an object for somebody else's overactive protective instincts.

In Rin's case, the situation seems more complex. It's Hisao who breaks in her bad ending, and he tells her exactly what kind of problem they are facing and how her personality sucks, but he also never completely tells her she has to change, he doesn't make her believe it is wrong to be herself. He simply makes her realize why is it that nobody can ever understand her completely. He leaves *her* to handle the problem, rather then giving her a clear-cut direction, which essentially either allows Rin to try and ignore his ramblings, or gives her motivation to push herself next time and try to actually communicate what are her expectations.

Rin's bad ending scene even plays out in her normal ending, only under different circumstances.

In the case of the neutral ending, while their relationship is better and they never break up so brutally, Rin is given a direction in life : She will try to become an artist in the sense her teacher wants her to be.

It seems to be a good step for leading a normal life and it seems to be admireable for her to finally find her resolve, but let me remind you...
Last time when Rin pushed herself to do anything that doesn't come naturally, she had to search for a lot of essentially destructive stymuli in order to make her mind "work" for her, and she even made a decision she has to "destroy herself". Nothing went right or the way it should be, and EVERYONE ignored her problems for the time being simply because she produced what was expected from her.

Now, her resolve is to become a true artist, namely, to keep doing exactly that : Producing art in a way that is not natural for her. That may well mean more silent, quiet, self-destructive mind stimulation tactics and it may well mean that Rin will continue hurting herself, without it giving any guarantee of success or without even having friends around to help her. Make no mistake, we have no idea whether she'll even succeed at her new place, whether she will create a "new" Rin that will be able to more normally interact with people. But we are given every reason to think that this kind of development will hurt her, be bad for her, and this time, she'll have neither Hisao nor Emi to support her.

There, I said what I deduced. What are your guys thoughts?

[russianspy1234]

honestly by the end of rins path i was so confused i not only couldnt tell which ending was neutral vs bad, i couldnt even tell good from bad.

as for hanako, even her good ending has issues (though ive noticed i like it far more than most on this forum) the happiest ive seen her has been during lilys path (which i have yet to finish). yes in her bad ending she breaks out of her shell a bit, but keep in mind in that path she hasnt socialized to the point where she can forum healthy relationships with others, if anything, with the healthy relationship she was forming selfdestructing, she would probably reatreat into herself even more.

[themocaw]

Everyone who compares Hanako!Hanako to Lilly!Hanako ignores that Lilly's path goes for another few months or so after Hanako's path ends. Which, honestly, is one of the big downsides to the story: we never get to see Hanako blossom and grow: it's just implied that it's about to happen.

I can understand why, given that stories are driven on conflict: after she and Hisao have their breakthrough, the major conflict is over. Even Lilly leaving for Scotland feels more like just a sad moment to live through rather than a conflict that needs to be resolved. It still feels a bit. . . curt, I guess.

[Bagheera]

Yes. The neutral endings aren't as bad for Hisao, but they're awful for the girls.

[Mirage_GSM]

In Rin's path I can't bring myself to think of any of the two bad endings as neutral. In one they break up in anger, in the other both end up heartbroken, because Hisao failed to understand Rin's problems.
If anything I would have thought the anger-ending had more chance for a positive resolution. When I first read that path, the anger-ending was the first I reached, and I was actually surprised when the bad credits rolled. While the two did fight, Hisao also managed to finally put his feelings into words, and I thought that maybe that might help Rin finally understand that she was hurting Hisao with her behaviour, however unintentionally. When I later read the good path, that feeling was reaffirmed, because they have the exact same conversation there as well, only now it is suddenly not a bad thing... This discrepancy is one of the very few things I criticized about the writing of Rin's arc.
Anyway, the way they turned out was extremely bad in both cases.
For Hanako's path, I think I was the one who first called her chess-ending the neutral one.
Some people said, being in the friend-zone with a girl was a negative thing... Well, I have a lot of female friends, and I don't consider that "bad" in nearly all cases. I''d have to reread the path to be sure about this, but I think at the point in the story when the chess ending happens, Hisao is still firmly in white-knight country and hasn't really started considering his feelings for Hanako love. Even if he did, there are worse things than staying friends with someone you have feelings for. Happened to me, got over it.
Regarding Rivan's point that Hanako would stay the way she is permanently in the chess ending - I don't think so. Hanako is shown to be a strong person in her path, she just hasn't had the opportunity to show it by the time the ending credits roll here. I se no reason why her character should differ from that in the other endings. Just because Hisao didn't ask her to go to town with him doesn't make her a completely different person.

[Rivan]

For Hanako's path, I think I was the one who first called her chess-ending the neutral one.
Some people said, being in the friend-zone with a girl was a negative thing... Well, I have a lot of female friends, and I don't consider that "bad" in nearly all cases. I''d have to reread the path to be sure about this, but I think at the point in the story when the chess ending happens, Hisao is still firmly in white-knight country and hasn't really started considering his feelings for Hanako love. Even if he did, there are worse things than staying friends with someone you have feelings for. Happened to me, got over it.
Regarding Rivan's point that Hanako would stay the way she is permanently in the chess ending - I don't think so. Hanako is shown to be a strong person in her path, she just hasn't had the opportunity to show it by the time the ending credits roll here. I se no reason why her character should differ from that in the other endings. Just because Hisao didn't ask her to go to town with him doesn't make her a completely different person.

It seems most of the people are content with just voting instead of voicing their opinion but I think I should stand ground on my point with Hanako.

Indeed, in case where Hisao would just be stuck as the "White Knight" and Hanako were to be permanently friendzoned (and vice versa) would make it a truly neutral ending for both of them, not really unhappy, but I think my point still stands - this ending basically tells us Hanako will stop "growing" because she's always treated like something to be protected.

Hanako makes it clear how much she despises being treated only as something to protect ; not even an equal friend, much less someone to love. She is (in her good ending) desperate to make Hisao see her in a different way, even though she also notes she "knew he couldn't".
She believes that all she ever was to him was someone useless, something to protect... She describes in detail why she feels that way and Hisao seems to correctly interpret that as her fear of getting thrown away once he was bored with their "friendship". She was basically tired of being treated as something fragile and broken, and that's why all the angsty stuff in her good ending happened, only that she isn't fully capable of recognizing this because Hisao's and Lilly's actions only deepen the pit where her sense of self-worth has landed. You can see how much she was lost and how much she cared when she totally breaks down once they and Hisao have their last talk, and even more so when he confesses to her.

In the neutral ending, Hisao does everything completely differently. He doesn't encourage or leave space for Hanako to grow in any way, he's basically just trying to always be there in order to help her regardless of whether this help is needed or if it's hurting her in the end. Given her reaction in the Bad ending, it can frustrate her endlessly. She basically is frustrated by Hisao just calling her a friend, and infinitely more frustrated with Hisao acting like she's less than a friend, but an object. The way she smiles in the neutral ending when mentioning "Everything is the same as before" even makes the clueless, white-knight version of Hisao realize something may not be all right for a moment. Hisao does more than confirm, he reinforces the notion with further admitances of protection and... stagnation. "Everything will be just like she never left". At the end of everything, even he, again, notes how something seems changed in Hanako and even notes how their friendship will probably always stay the same. With a certain distance only occassionaly decreased, and with him always making first moves.

I feel like this is a suggestion of something bad. Given that the clueless Hisao is able to catch on something despite his overbearing protective instinct and given how frustrated and despaired Hanako is in both her bad and good ending with the way Hisao was treating her up to that point, her coming to *accept* that behavior with a suggestion *everything is the way it was and won't change* makes me think that she isn't accepting Hisao as a friend, she's accepting the fact that she can never have anything more than she has now : A motherly friend and a white knight at her side.
Given the somewhat grim prediction of Hisao as to where this is going to go, I have a feeling ultimately Hanako is far worse off.

The notion seems reaffirmed in Lilly's route, simply because Lilly herself notes how much Hisao's presence helped in Hanako's growth, but also how visible it is that she *needs* her space to grow. The reason that Hisao is helpful is because, in Lilly's route, he has almost no protective instinct over Hanako to begin with. In Hanako's good route, it's the shredding of that protective instinct and Hanako's over secretiveness that helps her develop just as marvelously at the very end of her route.
Basically, she needs either a romantic partner or a true friend, as well as some space of her own, to develop into the better person in either Lilly's route or her own.

In her neutral ending, she gets neither. In her bad ending, this also happens, however, at least she is able to vocalize how much anger and frustration she feels at the situation, and that might help her, in the end. more than the situation she ends up with in her "Let's eat and play chess" ending.

[LurkerNo.9]

Rin's "neutral" ending - the one where Hisao contemplates his wristwatch - is one of my favorite endings in the game. It was the only scene that brought me close to tears. The bleakness of it, the nihilism, the numb acceptance of a cold and lonely world, the pained realization of his own inevitable mortality. I found it deeply affecting.

[MoonShadow]

I said that neutrals are worse. This is because in both of the bad endings, they depart in anger, and anger is a short emotion, that vanish fast and easilly. I think that if the stories continued after those events, Hisao could have tried to apologize. Even if the girls were to stay angry for a long time, angriness is the emotion that is the most easilly worked with ; I mean that it is better to understand someone angry than someone sad or depressed. Hisao could probably repair the wrong he did.

In Rin's neutral, she goes away to another school, thus destroying all the chances Hisao would have to try again.

In Hanako's neutral, she is happy that they just stay friends. Would Hisao risk destroying that happiness only to try to get closer to Hanako? I don't think so. If she is happy (neutral), he won't risk saddening her to try to reach a greater happiness. If she is sad and angry (bad), there is no way he will stand doing nothing, since almost any other state would be better than the current state.

[ForLackofaBetterName]

I guess I can't really comment on neutral or bad endings. For some reason with these types of things I can't choose the options to be a jerk... or any option that would lead the characters to be miserable/sad. Maybe I put too much of myself in? I'm completely content though with not getting 100% if it means not having to see what happens with the bad sides. Spoilers are fine to me, I don't mind knowing what happens... I just don't like to have to be the person to do it.

[Mirage_GSM]

In the neutral ending, Hisao does everything completely differently. He doesn't encourage or leave space for Hanako to grow in any way, he's basically just trying to always be there in order to help her regardless of whether this help is needed or if it's hurting her in the end

Have a little faith in Hanako. Hisao won't always be there to hold her back

Given the somewhat grim prediction of Hisao as to where this is going to go, I have a feeling ultimately Hanako is far worse off.

Still it is only Hisao's prediction, who - in this path - never really understood Hanako at all and thus isn't a reliably narrator.

[Notguest]

This is because in both of the bad endings, they depart in anger, and anger is a short emotion, that vanish fast and easilly. I think that if the stories continued after those events, Hisao could have tried to apologize. Even if the girls were to stay angry for a long time, angriness is the emotion that is the most easilly worked with ; I mean that it is better to understand someone angry than someone sad or depressed. Hisao could probably repair the wrong he did.

I always thought that the bad ends meant a permanent end to the relationship. That's certainly the way Emi reacts.

[MoonShadow]

This is because in both of the bad endings, they depart in anger, and anger is a short emotion, that vanish fast and easilly. I think that if the stories continued after those events, Hisao could have tried to apologize. Even if the girls were to stay angry for a long time, angriness is the emotion that is the most easilly worked with ; I mean that it is better to understand someone angry than someone sad or depressed. Hisao could probably repair the wrong he did.

I always thought that the bad ends meant a permanent end to the relationship. That's certainly the way Emi reacts.

Oh yeah, I don't think Hisao could go back to Emi after her bad ending, even if he tried real hard. She is too stubborn. But we are not talking about Emi here, we are talking about Rin and Hanako.

[quellsnarg]

I don't know. I never doubted that the bad endings for Rin and Hanako were The End of their relationship. Didn't any of you guys have relationships, romantic or otherwise, that ended with a single argument? One of my closest friendships ended that way in (early) high school, and I saw some romantic relationships end that way, too.

The problems had been there for a while; sometimes all it takes is for one or both of the parties to get worked up enough about it that it makes the relationship irreparable, especially for teenagers. I know with my relationship that I wanted to fix it but the damage had already been done and it would have been pointless to try to continue something that had become so broken, as much as I cared about my friend; I knew we'd be better people alone than together because somewhere along the line our relationship turned unhealthy and/or uncaring, which is what happened in Rin and Hanako's ends.

[Guest419]

In case of Rin, there's nothing Hisao can do about her gradual breakdown after their parting. Remember Sae's late husband? Well, she's been closely following his path as far as I can see.

We don't know what happens after Hisao's abandonment in the bad ending, but I don't see the outcome being any different in the end. And I don't see it being good in any sense.


In case of Hanako, Hisao never fully stops white-knighting. Thus, the situation may stay as it has been, but it could turn for worse, as it happens in bad ending.

Hanako may open up to people other than Lilly or Hisao, as it happens in Lilly's path, or she may not; there isn't much motivation for her to do so, unlike in Lilly's path.

But then again, she ends up hating both Hisao and Lilly in the bad ending. So at least the neutral ending is - or has a potential to be - better.

[The Local Hentai]

Being stuck in the friendzone is a really bad thing, sure...

Until you fuck her best friend.

I would say it's bad for the chicks but for hisao, he just needs to stop being a little bitch and move on with life.